The Risks of Overtraining and How to Avoid it

Many bodybuilders and online fitness personalities recommend lifting as hard as you can and work out at least five times per week.

If your goal is to become a famous athlete, then wanting to follow such recommendations are understandable.

However, if your goal isn’t to crush your body to the point where you can hardly move it but instead to have a good-looking physique, steadily increase your strength, and avoid unnecessary injuries, then there is no reason to do more than your body is capable of doing.

Even if you avoid injuries, you might be overtraining. While there aren’t many folks who overtrain because many people aren’t following their training schedule properly, know their limits, or just aren’t interested in making shockingly fast results, there is always a chance of being one of those guys who does more than is needed.

The Signs of Overtraining

1. Elevated Heart Rate

While it’s important to keep your heart rate elevated while you train, your heart rate shouldn’t be higher than 100 beats per minute while you aren’t working out. If it’s higher than 100 beats per minute, there can be other problems that can cause an increased heart rate, not just overtraining.

On the other hand, your heart rate can be as low as 60 or 40 beats per minute, especially if you train a lot and live a healthy lifestyle, and this is considered healthy if you feel good.

2. Constantly Being Thirsty

If you drink plenty of fluids and still feel thirsty, it might be because you’re in a catabolic state, which means that due to overtraining the body consumes its own muscle to gain protein and then cause dehydration.

3. Extended Muscle Soreness

It’s normal that after you train a particular part of your body you feel muscle soreness. But if it lasts for longer than 48 hours, there is a huge chance of overtraining. This means your muscles get too much work and can’t properly recover, so it’s better to have a short break and decrease the intensity of your training.

4. Constant Sickness

When the body is overtrained, it stays in a catabolic state, which makes the immune system less effective. So, it results in making it easier for a person to catch a cold and fall ill.

5. No Progress and Injuries

If the body is overtrained, it’s often because you’re not getting the right amount of nutrients while your body is being overworked. This results in making the body more fragile and not capable of growing stronger and growing more muscle mass.

How to Stop Overtraining

First of all, it’s recommended to stop training for at least a week or two as it allows the body to recover. Also, it gives plenty of time to eliminate mental fatigue. At the same time, you should find what was the cause of overtraining so that you can avoid overtraining in the future.

Sometimes, overtraining might result due to a poor diet, stressful work, and similar problems. All of these factors might influence your body in a negative way and make it too difficult to work out.

It might also be caused because you really train too often or too intensely. If that’s the case, you should slow down by training less often, less intensely, or both at the same time.

If resting for a week, decreasing the intensity and frequency of your training doesn’t help, it would be a great idea to visit a doctor. This will allow you to make sure whether you’re healthy or if there is a problem, then learn how to eliminate these problems.